Call of Duty: World at War

I had a chance last night to play the beta of Call of Duty:World at War. First impressions were not bad, but everything is going to difficult comparing anything to Call of Duty4:Modern Warfare – which is such an awesome online experience.

I didn’t play much, just a couple of games of TDM, there are three maps available – this is a beta after all, and the ranks only go up to 11. In the RTM there are 65 ranks and (?)prestige's, perks etc to be had. As this is set back in time the UAV, Airstrike and chopper are gone and are replaced by spotter planes, artillery and dogs. If anyone has played the single player mode of CoD4 they will remember the dogs and they are as much a pain in this one as choppers are in 4 – though you do get points for shooting them.

There are additional slots for custom classes, 5 at first but more once you prestige, so all those people who haven’t taken prestige in CoD4, will now have to decide whether to take it in this game for the added benefit of the custom slots.

There is the opportunity to look back at stats and view stats of people in the lobby. Stats are also broken down by game type, if you prefer one game type over another this will give the leaderboard a different look.

Within the beta there are a few game types but looking through the leaderboard filters it looks as though there are quite a few hardcore modes including Headquarters which is touted to come out on CoD4:MW soon (www.fourzerotwo.com)

The maps may be small but I found it quite difficult to guess friend or foe – which leads to the obvious result. You can turn off the icon or customize it above your teammates heads.

You can set the locale for which the lobby so those people who experience lag a lot may find helps.

Would I recommend it – the jury is still out on that one. Will I play it more – no, still a CoD4:MW player working through the 6th prestige and will keep going.

Weekend

After some Halo3 online play at the weekend I'm still bad at it.

There has been much written on the Bungie.net site about the stats not updating - well it's not surprising because of the sheer amount of data collected and the weekend is always likely to be the busiest time, but it's getting frustrating along with the lag in the game. There were several times that I got the first hit in only to take one and get killed.

So I would recommend the game but as these problems persist I'm looking forward to CoD4:MW which has a November release date. Hopefully they won't be as swamped as Halo3 servers in XBL.

Finished the Fight

Finished the Fight - Halo3 - last night. I must say that I was a bit disappointed in the last mission. Very little shooting and more about driving - oh well you can't please all of the people all of the time.

So it's now time to get all the skulls and terminals - whilst also looking at getting some MultiPlayer action in to get the rankings up.

Halo 3 Weekend

Had a few hours on Sunday to get through some more of Halo - only 2 levels to go then I can concentrate on the Skulls and other achievements.

Haven't had much chance to play the MultiPlayer but it's looking a bit tough to get the experience points needed when you have to finish 1st or 2nd in a 4 player game. Some people, on the Bungie.net forums, are asking if it would be possible to have more than 4 in a FFA (Free For All).

Halo 3

Had the opportunity to play last night - though not for long as there was a double episode of Heroes on.

First impressions are that it is good. Played through part of the first campaign and then a bit of on-line action (finished last with the least number of kills - which is not surprising as I haven't played Halo in ages)

The Beta of COD4:MW ends on Sunday at 12:00am PST.

So looking forward to tonight and some more fun - hopefully I get some better scores.

50/50

Well it's a 50/50 split - got Halo3 this morning and will be looking forward to getting a look at it later. That's the good news now the bad... some b*****d nicked my bike yesterday. I'd only had it a month and it was double locked to some railings. I was getting used to cycling in as it saved so much time.

Hopefully they'll get there just rewards for such a thing.

XBox Live

Just realised that I hadn't posted in a long while. Work commitments and game play have taken up such a lot of time. Been having fun with the Beta release of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, improving on GRAW2 and getting into Rainbow6: Vegas.

Firstly on GRAW2 well got some more ranking points and have improved. On the COD4:MW the ranking is OK but there are times when the lag means that despite having gotten a 'kill' two shots from them and you're gone, on the killcam you just look to be standing there and they are on full auto. Well that said it is an awesome game and should provide hours of funs when it arrives in November.

The big on this week is the release of Halo3 - got the preorder in and can't wait to get on it.

XBox Live

I don't how I got along with gaming before I started on Live. Having finished the course and settled into the new job I decided to get back into gaming. With the 360 having sat around unloved for quite a while I bought Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2 and an XBox Live subscription (to take advantage of the wireless broadband I have in the house). After getting to grips with the gameplay I decided to jump into the online play.

The first couple of games were pretty bad finishing last in the solo elimination round but as I played more, and gave up on sleep as there don't appear to be as many games hosted until the US gets online, the better I got and now it is becoming a small obsession to getting ranking points and achievements.